The best thing about Moffat and Smith
floopy123
Posts: 6,003 Forum Member
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I was thinking about why I prefer Matt Smith's Doctor over David Tennant's and I realized what it was...
He's not portrayed as a demi-god out to save everyone.
RTD gave Tennant lots of "I am the Doctor, you can't mess with me, I'm the best" sort of monologues and Tennant relished them. However, Smith's Doctor is a different beast entirely, much quieter, more eccentric, possibly more flawed, and Moffat doesn't need to go the 'demi-god' route. I believe this is a major difference between RTD Doctor Who and Moffat Who. The change in the lead actors was necessary to achieve this.
Tennant wasn't a natural at being eccentric, he had brash charm and a cocky ego, and Smith wouldn't be a natural at being too egotistical and loud. I think the casting of Smith fits Moffat's vision of Doctor Who and Tennant fitted Davies' vision.
He's not portrayed as a demi-god out to save everyone.
RTD gave Tennant lots of "I am the Doctor, you can't mess with me, I'm the best" sort of monologues and Tennant relished them. However, Smith's Doctor is a different beast entirely, much quieter, more eccentric, possibly more flawed, and Moffat doesn't need to go the 'demi-god' route. I believe this is a major difference between RTD Doctor Who and Moffat Who. The change in the lead actors was necessary to achieve this.
Tennant wasn't a natural at being eccentric, he had brash charm and a cocky ego, and Smith wouldn't be a natural at being too egotistical and loud. I think the casting of Smith fits Moffat's vision of Doctor Who and Tennant fitted Davies' vision.
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If Tennant had stayed another year, we wouldn't have an eleventh Doctor.
Matt Smith is different, of course. Allows different stories and dynamics.
Different opinions but eleven is eccentric, but I thought ten was forced euphoria and had a unsettling instability, but I thought that was part of the doctor's coping with darkness - some genuine joy there, though - snatched moments - more so as time went on.
I think i am bonkers to pay it so much attention.
Hmmm.... I'm not sure about this: Moffat has given the current Doctor at least a couple such "I'm the best" speeches (see The Eleventh Hour and Time of Angels); and one of Tennant's most notable "demi god" moments, I think, was the "Look me up" speech in Forest of the Dead - which was again written by Moffat.
nyingy
don't like those moments in either doctor. should be used sparingly.
Agreed - the Doctor has always given little speeches, but often more as illustration of his "wider perspective" on the workings of time and the universe (favourites include Hartnell's and Eccleston's)..
The more recently developed 'smackdowns' have never, never worked for me. I recall desperate attempts to extract my fist from my throat after Sylvester McCoy's speeches near the conclusion of Remembrance of the Daleks, for example...
nyingy
CHJ meant that if Moffat wrote Tennant's Doctor as the character we're seeing now, there'd be much less distinction between the Tenth Doctor and...whoever the Eleventh Doctor would've been, and too much distinction between RTD's Ten and Moffat's Ten. I think.
Also there was the "There's one thing you don't put in a trap...", "What's that?" "...Me!" dialogue between Angel Bob and the Doc, in the Angels episode.
Don't forget the cheesy "lonely Angel" stuff from the girl in the fireplace...and also that "remarkable man" from River. In TBB you also have the lonly god stuff going on as well when Amy compares him to the Star Whale.
What RTD was challenge the God like demonour, everytime it was brought up that he was God like, something or someone always challenged him, if not there and then, it came back to bite him in the end (thinking of TCI and Harriet Jones here), and Moff finally did that in Time of the Angels with Father Octavion, and now last night. If you really think that RTD and DT relished in making the Doctor God like, then watch Midnight, and Waters of Mars to show how they enjoy breaking the Doctor's God like persona.
Exactly...from the moment of TCI when he decides that what Harriet Jones did was wrong, and all the way to Waters of Mars where that flaw in the Doctor (and thinking you are god is a huge flaw) came to its pinnicle state, then foor knocks literally knocking out that ego out of him....and out of that the Eleventh Doctor is born.....so he is less likely to have that God persona....but saying that as examples pointed out in TEH and TOA...its still deep within that...in fact the Dream Lord almost represents that too...all the things the Doctor feels make so grand.
Yes they are definitely big examples....and we may see more to come yet....
Of course, the writers of the New Adventures books did that about 15 years ago, in a much more subtle way...
Is there a subtle way you can think you are a god? It comes with an attitude.
Exactly....and in all fairness, it was was drip drip untill the ultimate show down in WOM....and the same thing seems to be happening again in serries five....like those scenes in TEH and last night....I wonder where this will head eventually.
Yes, I meant that. Thanks.
This sums it for me.
My dislike of the 10th Dr grew over the years, and has been expressed quite thoroughly elsewhere, but can be summed in up "Doctor walking towards camera in slo-mo while a huge explosion billows behind him".
That hero stuff, the fetishisation of the Doctor (possibily the fetishisation of Tennant) switched me off. By the time he was the Time Lord Victorious, I was shouting at the telly and actively wishing the Doctor to be gone. Doctor Who has never been "about" the Doctor in this way before, and I found it very hard to adjust. I certainly found it hard to like the 10th Dr for a lot of his time. The 9th Dr was a totally different creature: sharp and unpleasant sometimes, he was never an easy watch.
The 10th was sometimes cute and cuddly (he utterly won me over by having Christmas dinner with the Tylers), but sometimes all-powerful and callous. The switch between the two was always difficult to balance, and became swamped with sequences of the Doctor sobbing or the Doctor walking away from slo-mo explosions. By the time he was shouting at Wilf, in his final scenes, I was well and truly narked off.
Maybe this was all supposed to indicate how damaged the Doctor was by the Time War ... but it just got on my moobs and ensured that the whole thing became about the Doctor rather than about the adventures.
The 11th Dr has brought a freshness to the show that is extremely welcome. Out with the old ...
This is the probably the best post i've seen on this subject.
I've always like that idea, that he sort of evolves emotionally each time he regenerates, if you think of each incarnation as a 'life' then each is a different learning experience.